A person seated in an automobile seat, a chair, a stadium seat, etc. often needs to hold objects on his or her lap. These might include food, drink containers, business papers, games, small pets, etc. Such things are difficult to support directly on the lap. A number of different trays, panels, clipboards and the like have been developed to meet this need, with varying degrees of effectiveness.
A fast food lap tray assembly is described by Eisenberg in U.S. Pat. No. 5,520,119. This assembly includes a thick, molded tray for placement across a user's thighs, having a plurality of recesses molded into the tray top for receiving correspondingly shaped fast food containers, drink cups, etc. Downwardly extending pliable straps are provided at the sides of the tray for wrapping under the user's legs. While effective with fast food containers sized to fit the recesses, this tray does not have a surface useful for holding pets, paperwork, games and other activities requiring a generally flat surface. The pliable straps would be difficult to tightly wrap around the thighs and would be likely to come loose during use, allowing the tray to move about, particularly in a moving vehicle. With the recesses and straps, this tray is quite thick and could not be stored in a small or narrow space, such as the space generally available below automobile seats. A cloth cover cannot be fitted snugly over such a tray. Also, a tray having so many recess corners would be difficult to clean.
A clipboard with a strap for fastening to a user's thigh is described by Senior et al. In U.S. Pat. No. 2,701,173. This clipboard would be useful in doing paperwork, but is not adaptable to extending across the entire lap. The strap could be difficult to fasten and the assembly could easily rotate to the side so that the surface would not be level.
A foldable lap tray is described by Hood in U.S. Pat. No. 5,127,339. A corrugated cardboard sheet is folded about a user's thighs and connected under the thighs. Wrapping this assembly about the thighs and closing the connection would be quite difficult, and the stiff cardboard would not be comfortable.
A number of different lap trays have been designed that essentially consist of a flat or shaped panel that rests on the thighs with no means for holding the panel in place. Typical of these are the devices described by Harris et al. In U.S. Pat. No. Design 308,450 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,680,973. These trays nave nothing to hold them in place on the lap and would generally be quite large and difficult to store in a small space.
Thus, there is a continuing need for a lap tray for use with any seat to protect the lap from spills and the like, to support weight above the lap, having a basically flat surface for supporting a small animal, writing, eating and playing games, that can be easily cleaned, that can be easily secured to, and released from, the legs and which is thin and compact for easy storage when not in use.